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English
English is a Western Germanic language that serves as one of the most important languages in Human space as well as for the Mobian race. Originally it was believed to be an amalgamation of multiple sources of languages, most notably German which supplied much of the content, while subsequently taking aspects of Romantic languages. Over hundreds of years, English has remained one of the most widely used and essential languages used in common, commercial, and military usage. As a language, it has remained very similar in appearance and usage for centuries, changing very little due to the sheer importance and widespread use of it. Despite originating on Earth, English has travelled to mankind's early settlements, gradually going farther and farther away as time went on. After the Solar system started to become colonized in the 22nd Century, it was clear that in order to maintain a level of understanding between Human colonies, a trade tongue had to exist. Among a group of others, English was chosen to be one of those languages, thus, committed to being a virtually constant, unchanging language simply because citizens wanted to understand one another without being confused. English is also the language of air travel, sea travel, and space travel that dates back to times of antiquity in the 20th Century. English, along with other 'Earth Languages' are legal tongue and are considered 'classy' compared to other child dialects that were formed in its wake. English as a core language though did undergo changes that one would expect with people forming their own regional dialects. Over many years, loanwords and slang eventually formed other dialects and subdialects within. Though Standard English, or 'Earth English' as it was known would remain unchanged. If an Anglo-speaking citizen from 2160 were to somehow find his or her way to 3235, they would be able to communicate with English-speaking citizens with very little to no difficulty thanks to it being a trade tongue. Even if one were to somehow travel from the 1800s to modern day times, very little difficulty would result between the two. Dialects on the other hand are more difficult as the circumstances for their creation may have been the result of many other factors. An English speaker from 2000 may have difficulty understanding a modern day English dialect due to different, decayed, or evolved grammatical styles, perhaps catching only one in three words, or perhaps less. A small understanding may be gained, but conversation would be quite awkward. The farther away from Earth one is, the language is much more subject to change. On the fringes of Human space, some English dialects may take cues and loanwords from other alien races, which makes a rather exotic tongue. However, there will always be someone that speaks Earth English as it is incredibly beneficial to keep the trade tongue. Some aliens can speak English quite well given that they have education on it. Some parts of the language might be easy to grasp for some races, but tougher for others. Unggoy on the one hand are extremely fast learners that pick up on English far quicker than other races. On the flip side, Sangheili find the language difficult to speak since their mandibles make it a challenge to make certain sounds, and some other races (ex. Lyshaad) are absolutely baffled by concepts like homophones or words that are spelled the same, yet have different meaning depending on the concept that they are used. Mobians speak Earth English due to the fact that the original colonists were separated from Humanity at the end of the 22nd Century, thus the language's principles survived into the new Terra Novan - later Mobian - society. Events like the Dark Ages only increased the dependancy on English. When 3234 came about, Mobians had no problem communicating with Humans. Dialects *Earth English (High Language) *Mobian English (Identical to EE) *Mercian English (Degraded EE) *Binary Anglo *Centaurian *Constantinian (mixed with German lexicon) *Tallahase (mixed with Portruguese lexicon) *Angbic *Franglic (mixed with French lexicon Behind the Scenes *The inclusion of English in science fiction was always something of a point that was brought up after reading up on languages and the concept of Translation Convention, which is a trope induced by writers that often give the impression that text or speech is rendered into English, when in fact the characters are speaking a native language that in fact sounds totally different in reality. This presents an interesting scenario when in far-future settings, characters speaking in English, are in fact not speaking it at all (see Basic in Star Wars, or Westron in Tolkein's work). Starting out, naturally I didn't have a concept of this, but now after reading about languages and how they change, it would only be natural that the UEG would have standardized languages that change very little if not at all, thus, English would be one of a handful that would not change. What you are reading is exactly what it sounds like if you were to step into the universe, but languages do organically change in the world as well, so the trope has an interesting take on it. Category:Language